Christmas with the Lutz's

With how Christmas fell this year we ended up celebrating with the Lutz's the day after Christmas. The kids love helping grandma cook and get ready for the Christmas meal. This year Susie had decided that she wanted to do a Christmas brunch. A certain couple somebodies (Robb and Andy) like things how they have always been. Their stipulation on brunch was that it still had lots of delicious meat and not just breakfast items. Boys! Susie of course delivered! Brunch complete with multiple meat choices was amazing.

Bob helping with Christmas brunch.

The girls had matching Christmas dresses that Susie made. This is always such a fun tradition!

The kids minus AJ. He was much too busy to come take a picture for me.

AJ and Brook got new desks.

Bryce got custom made pads from Grandma and Grandpa for his basketball room. The first month we lived in our house Robb had put a butt mark in the wall of Bryce's room and so had Bryce. Time for some pads to go up.

Caleb was excited about his new engraved tools from Aaron. No more having dad steal his tools.

He also got a work coat so he can help Robb outside.

Caleb smiling about his new tools.

As always Grammy came up with a handmade gift for ALL the great grandkids and mass produced them in very little time! This was the year of the mermaid tail for girls and the shark for the boys. They loved them!

Abby got a lot of crafty stuff. This will keep her busy.

The kids also got their IPads this year. They have been wanting those forever and they were over the moon about getting them.Thanks for such a fun Christmas Lutz/s!

Christmas with Mom

After seeing what Santa brought us and playing with our new stuff for a bit we got ready to head to Norfolk for some Christmas with the Fam.

Mom had people over for Christmas lunch but Robb and I decided a couple years ago that we needed some of our own traditions for Christmas and for us that meant attending Christmas Eve service at our church and having the kids wake up to Santa gifts at our house. We didn't get to Mom's until later that evening. We had the craziest weather this Christmas. We drove through pretty bad thunderstorms and even had to slow down to almost a stop for a couple miles because it was raining so hard. It's not all that often that there are tornado warnings on Christmas.When we got to Norfolk the wind was blowing so hard we had to hold onto the girls so they could walk inside.We ended up missing Mitch and Courtney and Steph and Draven but we still got to see Grandma for Christmas and Grandma and Grandpa Walnofer were there so it was fun to see them also.

Emmy loved her baby doll she got!

Abby was excited about her new art kits.

Caleb and Bryce were excited to have giftcard money to spend on things that they picked out and Grandma had gotten them some fun little things too.

We had bought Mom a foot spa, that was on her list. The girls have one and were so excited for her to use it that they got it out of the box, filled it with water and then tried it out. It was pretty funny!

The whole group with Grandma and Grandpa Walnofer.

The whole group with Grandma Jody.

Thanks for a fun Christmas supper Grandma Jody.

Christmas Morning

Santa managed to find our house! This was a pretty big concern for the kids since it was our first year in the new house.

We had told the kids that they couldn't ger up until 6:30 which they thought was terribly late for Christmas morning. They were all up (with the exception of Emmy) long before that but they had to stay in bed. Emerson wasn't quite sure why we were getting up so early!

She was excited about her snow globe and her scooter though.

Abby was super excited about her electric scooter! It was just what she had asked for. The only problem with outside toys for Christmas is that you have to put up with them using them in the house. I was sure she was going to crash into a wall. She gave it a try a couple of times and then decided that inside was a bad place to ride it (Thank Goodness)!

Bryce was excited to get his signed picture of Kevin Durant and his Game Ball. Robb tells me a game ball is very different from a regular ball so it's a good thing Santa knew the difference because I didn't.

Caleb was thrilled to see that he had gotten a Go Pro camera. This has been the year of high tech gifts for Caleb which means he needs a lot of help from Robb to set them up and get them running.

I think Santa had a pretty successful year at the Lutz household. Everyone was excited about their gifts but it is always a little bittersweet to to have to say good bye to Blitzen and Bella.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Robb and I decided a couple years ago, that as fun as it was to see family for the holidays, we really needed some of our own traditions also.We have been working on this over the years and one thing we decided was important to us was to be able to attend our own church for Christmas Eve service and to have the kids wake up on Christmas morning at our house. So we did just that. Christmas Eve we spent the morning hanging out listening to the kids beg and plead to open gifts and then we gave in after lunch. They had a great time opening gifts! I always wrap all of each kids gifts in one kind of paper but I usually don't tell them whose paper is whose to add to the excitement. The kids had started to figure it out and had already sorted all the gifts out. This year we struggled a little because all of Bryce and Caleb's gifts are really expensive and all of  Abby and Emmy's gifts are relatively cheap. So, we had to remind the boys of that when their pile of gifts wasn't as big as the girls.

Bryce got a jersey and shorts, football and basketball cards, a new Ipod because his screen broke and some other odds and ends.

Caleb got a jersey and shorts, mini drone and electricity game and some other little things.

Abby got a blue tooth speaker system, clothes, and art stuff.

Emerson got a karaoke machine, Barbies, paint stuff, and a baby doll and accessories.
All of the kids made us cute crafts for Christmas and gave us candy and lots of cards.
Robb and I gave each other a house for the next 30 years. Ha Ha

We ended the evening with going to a beautiful church service and each year Emmy becomes less and less distracting. She especially loved the singing so that kept her attention. After church we went to about the only restaurant in town to eat which is Imperial Palace. Chinese food for Christmas Eve why not!

Last but not least we needed to set out our cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer and say goodbye and goodnight to our elves Blitzen and Bella. We read the Christmas story and headed to bed knowing that it would be an early morning since we had only required that they sleep until 6am.

Christmas Eve Eve

We decided to get brave and host Christmas for the Mattern side of the family at our new house. We had Dad and Cindy, Steph, Lester, Draven, Corbin, Mitch, Courtney and Weston. Everyone from this side got to come with the exception of Jess, Chris and their family.

 We decided this would be a good trial run to see how it goes hosting things at our house. It worked wonderfully and it is so fun to be in the new, bigger house. We had a blast! There was a lot of wine and laughing and the kids had a great time together. Dad had a Santa hat on and Weston thought he was the real deal Santa which made everyone crack up all night long. When Dad and Cindy came they carried in 3 wrapped gifts very carefully and when Dad handed them to me he told me to make sure that I kept them upright because they had air holes in them. I know my dad and I knew he was just messing with Bryce, Caleb and Draven but those boys about went nuts all night long trying to figure out what in the world could be in those boxes. When it came time to open them they were disappointed to find out Grandpa had wrapped up coal for them and they did not get an animal. It was fun to see everyone and we were thrilled that this worked out since this was the only time the kids would get to see these cousins this Christmas. Thanks everyone was making the trip to Lincoln!

The boys table

Aunt Steph got Emmy a dog as big as her. She loves him and decided to call him Muff randomly.

The boys opening their boxes with air holes.

Grandma and Grandpa and the kids. I think if Dad wanted some extra income in Dec he could bleach the beard and pass for Santa.

Most of the group. Someone had to take the picture.

Our family including Lucy

We got Weston and trike and he pretty much wasn't willing to give up his spot on that the rest of the night.